Aldridge, G. (2002) Cycles of listening for identifying incidents of therapeutic significance in clinical improvisation Music Therapy Today (online), August, available at http://musictherapyworld.net TABLE 1. Modes of listening and its related components
Focussed Listening: “What” – “How”.
Relational context
Musical & extra musical events. Revelation and description.
Distant Interpretative Listening:
To give meaning is an act of identity
Developing the faculty of therapeutic language and discourse: relationship between therapeutic actions and the process of healing.
Distant Table 1 on page 3 displays an overview of some modes of listening and components allied with the activity of listening. While the quoted components may occur in all modes of listening, the components Element of participation, Performance and Action and purposeful movement seem to be prevalent in what I have called Empirical Listening. In the following I will comment on both, the modes of listening and the related components. Examples taken from therapeutic improvisations as well as illustrations shall clarify this further.
3.3 Empirical listening Listening takes place in the therapy room out of one’s own experience. We can term it empirical listening. It is immediate, direct and close, and includes feelings and thoughts aroused during or after the improvisation. Our perceptual/emotional listening is coloured by impressions, images and physical movements. Here music appears as action, it lives and exists in the moment and therefore is only partially understood. Spontaneous notes, written down immediately after the session, are helpful to catch the overall impression of the session. It is obvious that listening is very much connected with the phenomenon of experience and therefore can be regarded in connection with the philosophy of empirism. The knowledge of the world is gleaned through experience. It comes through the senses that meet the ear. The non-sensory factor involved is that of cognitive perception, the dimension of the mind. It is a process of organization where meaning is imposed upon what is heard. To perceive then is to give meaning to what is heard, an act of identity. This fact points to the two-dimensional quality of listening: Listening is focused on what is played outside one-
August 1, 2002
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